MotoGP Assen: Marco Bezzecchi dominates Practice 1 as Francesco Bagnaia loses his temper

Although it was very early in the session, Enea Bastianini made a strong start as he led a Ducati 1-2-3 ahead of Luca Marini and Francesco Bagnaia.  

The reigning world champion had to abandon his latest lap after carrying too much speed into turn six, which resulted in him going off-track.

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As lap times became more representative, Bezzecchi proved to be the rider with the best pace as he was first to break into the 1m 33s barrier.

The Mooney VR46 Ducati rider then set a time of 1:33.585s in order to keep Miguel Olvieira off top spot by just under a tenth. 

Struggling during the early stages, Marc Marquez was 1.5 seconds down on Bezzecchi’s fastest time with 15 minutes gone. 

Practice 1 also saw a slow start for factory KTM riders Jack Miller and Brad Binder, both of whom were in the bottom four. 

Back at the head of the leaderboard, Bezzecchi found another three tenths in order to separate himself from Johann Zarco in P2. 

Takaaki Nakagami then showed that the Honda could be competitive as he jumped up to second spot, moments before Oliveira suffered a fast crash at turn one. 

Down in eighth place, Bagnaia made another mistake at turn six as he ran off circuit for the second time. 

Bagnaia managed to improve his lap time and move up to sixth on the next lap around, however, the Ducati star then ran wide at turn one which led to him showing frustration with himself. 

While Bagnaia picked up his bike soon enough to avoid a crash, teammate Bastianini was not so lucky as he wrecked his GP23 machine at turn ten.

Bastianini went down immediately after applying the brakes, before he and the bike barrel-rolled through the gravel. Bastianini was unhurt and managed to get back to his feet straight away. 

Making it back-to-back falls for Ducati riders was Johann Zarco, as the Frenchman went down at turn 15. 

After suffering his heavy fourth-gear crash, Zarco found Miller on the entry to pit lane which led to the Australian giving him a lift back to his garage.  

With just over five minutes remaining Bezzecchi was still leading the way by four tenths from Vinales.

A time of 1:32.725s was set by the Italian as several riders elected to use a soft rear tyre. 

Despite that, Bezzecchi remained unchallenged at the head of the field as he closed out the session three tenths clear of Vinales. 

There was late drama for Martin, with the Pramac rider running out of fuel when lining up for a practice start.